Mad libs imitation by Lauren Kahle

There are families with movie theaters

There are people with body parts that are

Not theirs; strictly artificial, plastic

People throw away pounds of food each week

Clothes stuffed away that will never be worn

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure

Thousand dollars for a dead animal

To wear it on your back like a trophy

For what? What did you do to deserve it?

When Children don’t know when they will eat next

 Families struggle to survive daily

Working hard; to the point of exhaustion

While others don’t have to work for a day

People hogging other peoples’ land and

People are stuck, with nowhere to call a home

Children forced to fight wars for enemies

While children wine about ice cream flavors

It seems so simple, yet so complicated

Unsympathetic to others’ problems

While problems so miniscule are so grand?

Money spent on unnecessary things

While the people all around are starving

Instead of a boat, you could save someone

Even if just for a night, better than

Something you’ll just throw away tomorrow

Instead of focusing our attention

On material goods, unimportant

Possessions, we have the power to help

The people who need it more than we do

------------------------------------------------------------

Poem of the Day: Mad Lib Elegy

BY BEN LERNER

There are starving children left on your plate.

There are injuries without brains.

Migrant workers spend 23 hours a day

removing tiny seeds from mixtures

they cannot afford to smoke

and cannot afford not to smoke.

Entire nations are ignorant of the basic facts

of hair removal and therefore resent

our efforts to depilate unsightly problem areas.

Imprisonment increases life expectancy.

Finish your children. Adopt an injury.

           ‘I'm going to my car. When I get back,

           I'm shooting everybody.'

                                [line omitted in memory of_______]

70% of pound animals will be euthanized.

94% of pound animals would be euthanized

if given the choice. The mind may be trained

to relieve itself on paper. A pill

for your safety, a pill for her pleasure.

Neighbors are bothered by loud laughter

but not by loud weeping.

Massively multiplayer zombie-infection web-games

are all the rage among lifers.

The world is a rare case of selective asymmetry.

The capitol is redolent of burnt monk.

           ‘I'm going to my car. When I get back

           I'm shooting everybody.'

                                 [line omitted in memory of _______]

There are two kinds of people in the world:

those that condemn parking lots as monstrosities,

‘the ruines of a broken World,' and those

that respond to their majesty emotionally.

70% of the planet is covered in parking lots.

94% of a man's body is parking lot.

Particles of parking lot have been discovered

in the permanent shadows of the moon.

There is terror in sublimity.

If Americans experience sublimity

the terrorists have won.

          ‘I'm going to my car. When I get back

          I'm shooting everybody.'

                                [line omitted in memory of _______]